Chambéry Airport, beloved for its proximity and ease-of-access to many of the big name ski areas in the French Alps, but less popular for its peak time crowding, is undergoing a multi-million Euro upgrade aimed at addressing many of those issues.
The airport is little used outside the ski season so investing in big infrastructure improvements have been hard to justify, but as ever more UK airlines use the airport on ever more routes, it was equally impossible to ignore the overcrowding issues. Crystal Ski Holidays alone brings well over 30,000 British skiers to the French Alps via Chambéry Savoie airport every year with up to 20 flights once a week from 15 regional UK airports including Gatwick, Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol and Dublin.
The company says that nearly half-a-million Crystal customers have used this route since 2004. There are also scheduled services from BA and FlyBe with four new routes launching this winter from the two airlines including daily flights from London City with BA through the Christmas and New Year holiday fortnight.
It also offers direct road access to Rhône-Alpes motorways and is the best possible gateway to France's ski resorts.
VINCI Airports, which operates Chambéry Savoie on behalf of the local authority (Council of Savoie), says the airport is undergoing a complete overhaul ahead of the ski season including better check in facilities with belts at all check in desks to speed up the process, then improved security check facilities, better departure lounges, improved signage throughout the airport, there will even be a bigger duty free shop and new loos.